Weekly Web Round-Up: Week of December 21, 2012

We have been super buys here at NYMetroParents, launching a redesign of our magazine and preparing for the holidays. But, we’re finally back with the weekly web round-ups! This week, you’ll find out Babbles Top 50 Dad Bloggers, Elizabeth Banks’ hipster baby gift guide, Quiet Santa, and a parenting news parody website.

It’s that time of year again—time for Babble’s Top 50 Dad Blogs of 2012. Their list includes some of our favorites, NYC Dad’s Group and Bobblehead Dad, plus a plethora of other blogs for us to start following.

Last year, when we inaugurated our Top 50 Dad Blogs list, we praised dad bloggers for “changing the way we think about fatherhood.” Indeed, a number of

our favorite bloggers on this, our second Top 50 list, insist our thinking needs to be changed. They describe themselves as advocates for fathers, taking to their keyboards in order to counter dominant cultural stereotypes of dad-as-incompetent-buffoon. (You don’t believe them? Tune in to most any family sitcom on most any night of the week.) Others on the list aspire simply to entertain us with funny, relatable tales from the trenches. A few write to work through the shattering grief of losing a child or spouse.

This list features straight dads, gay dads, working dads, stay-at-home dads, geek dads, single dads, and more. In a culture where the dominant conversations around fatherhood center simply on whether dads can deign to change their kid’s diaper, it’s refreshing to see these guys take the public perception of parents into their own hands.

So check it out, and if you don’t see your favorite dad blog there, go ahead and nominate it!

Do you know a hipster baby? Well, you can’t just give them any old thing for Christmas this year, or well, I guess something old will do—I mean vintage… Elizabeth Banks has come up with a list of gifts for hipster babies—that record player is a blast from my past…

Julie Sheldon, from Wisconsin, has a nephew on the autism spectrum, so she organized Quiet Santa, an opportunity for children on the spectrum to have a chance to visit Santa without the noise, lights, and crowd of the mall.

“Father Regrets Buying Used Race-Car Bed,” “Slow Wedgie Not as Effective as Fast Wedgie, According to Accomplished Wedgie Giver,” “Max Has Plans for Insufferable , Nagging Sister, Ruby, After Viewing the Thriller Fatal Attraction.” These are all headlines you’ll find over at The Parenteer, a parenting news parody website.

Ian Trainor, who purchased the used bed on eBay, estimates that he’s actually spent more on repairs than the new bed, at $879, would have cost.